The Physician by Noah Jordon

Here’s a new author for us. This one was written in 1986 and was given to me by another bibliophile (Owen Hahn, retired college football coach, golfer, story teller, painter). This was a Michener-like opus, 700+ pages, which was perfect to read on a long vacation. Rob J. Cole is the main character, starting in 10^th century England. The author gives a remarkable description of day-to-day life for this boy from a poor family. His mother dies and he is left to care for his four younger siblings, but then his carpenter father is killed in a work accident. According to the rules of the carpenter guild, the family’s children and assets are distributed among the guild members, but Rob is taken by a traveling barber-surgeon, literally a snake oil salesman who travels about entertaining, healing, and accepting money for his potions, which are mostly alcohol, sometimes mixed with his own urine. However, Rob has the healing touch and decides to pursue medical training. But, the only medical schools in England are worthless, so he travels to Persia where the world’s most famous physician is a teacher. Remember that this is the time of the crusades, and Christians are not welcome there, but Jews are allowed to become students. So, Rob learns enough about Judaism to fake being a Jew. However, one of his fellow Arab students learns that Rob is not a Jew, and he risks his own life by keeping the secret. However, he demands that Rob pay for his sin of lying about his own god by learning the details of Islam. Basically, this is a story that explores the details of and the prejudices of the world’s three great religions versus the others. Jordon does a great job with that. He also does a great job of describing the hardships of life in the 10^th century, the travel to Persia, the life there, and Rob’s eventual return to England where he finds the re-adaptation to life in London to be impossible. A side plot was his love of a Scottish woman and his final move to Scotland to be with his wife and sons. I’m not sure if this summary will catch your attention, but I thought the book was worth my time, and it covers parts of history with which I’m not all that familiar. Jordon has written a number of books, and I’ll probably read more of his work in the future.

West Coast Don